


Memories

by mean_whale



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Blood and Injury, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Possible Character Death, dying adam, i tagged death just in case, massive injury, you decide whether he lives or dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-17 01:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16965015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mean_whale/pseuds/mean_whale
Summary: As Adam is dying his thoughts turn to Takashi.





	Memories

His breaths were wheezing.

It was the first thing he became aware of. His head was pounding, he could hear the flow of his blood in his ears. His left leg was in so much pain it burned.

He opened his eyes. There was blood on the visor of his helmet. The world looked less three dimensional than it should. He was probably tired. He was…

His left side was aching and when he touched it, he could feel something wet. He didn’t look down. With his clean hand he reached into his pilot suit, fingers stumbling with how much they shook. With weakness or with pain – he wasn’t sure.

He found what he was looking for, pulled his hand out of the suit holding on to the photograph.

Takashi.

His hand was shaking too much. Suddenly he realised that he couldn’t see with his left eye. Suddenly there was a surge of pain inside him. He wanted to bend down, wanted to curl into himself, but he was still strapped to his seat.

He held up the photo. His arm strained with the effort, but he couldn’t give up. He needed this. He needed Takashi. Takashi was smiling at him from the photo, eyes so clear and joyful, the curl of his lips so familiar and his hair freshly cut.

He had always loved running his fingers through Takashi’s short hair, how soft it was, how much he loved feeling it under his fingertips when they were lying side by side, how he would sink his hands in to Takashi’s hair and Takashi would laugh, face clear of worries and simply happy.

Happy.

He hadn’t felt happy ever since.

He looked down. His left leg was hidden from view by the collapsed dashboard. Maybe it was better. But he saw how his suit was stained dark red on his left side, a gaping hole torn through the fabric and skin, through him. His skin was burnt, charred remains of what he once was.

He should have written a letter to tell Takashi.

Tell him that he was still so much in love. He was still carrying a picture of Takashi with him, his one true love, his only one.

His last one.

His head was pounding, and he leaned it back to his seat. The picture of Takashi shook in his hand, getting blurry. He realised that he had closed his eyes – or maybe only his right one? He couldn’t feel the left side of his face.

He was going to die.

He was going to die and never see Takashi again. Not that he deserved to see him after their break-up, so bitter and angry, Takashi probably hated him, despised him for being so selfish. He wished that he hadn’t been so selfish. Maybe that way he could have let go.

Maybe he could have let go if he had been given just one more chance to tell Takashi how selfish it was to choose space over a loving relationship. Space was cold and unforgiving. He would have been warm, he would have been there every single day. He would have been everything Takashi ever needed.

He couldn’t have been.

There would have been something else that would have driven them apart. The picture in his hand was blurring and he tried to blink to clear it again. The way he had blinked when Takashi left, but clearing his vision didn’t bring Takashi back. He was gone.

He was still gone.

He was always gone.

It was getting harder to breathe, and he lowered his arm to let it rest. With effort he turned his head down to look at the picture. He didn’t know why he kept it. It was a bittersweet picture, yet it was also the only one where Takashi looked so peacefully happy. He hadn’t seen that in so many years.

He remembered Takashi when they first met, the young boy whose eyes were sharp and dark, and he was immediately drawn to the air of friendly confidence that surrounded him. He was already Shiro back then. Shiro. He never asked why the nickname. He had never thought to ask.

Maybe he wasn’t as good a boyfriend as he had always thought.

Maybe…

He remembered the sky and how clear it was, billions of stars shining right above them, and Takashi would point to them and talk about them with such excitement in his voice. _One day I’m going to be up there_ , he always said.

He stopped saying it after the diagnose. They still sneaked out to the desert, Takashi driving the hoverbike and he was clutching Takashi’s waist, not because he couldn’t drive himself, but because he loved feeling Takashi’s warmth against him, Takashi’s wide back, Takashi’s strength. He would press his face against Takashi’s shoulder and close his eyes, breathe, breathe Takashi and the night air of the desert.

They would kiss under the stars and the desert was cold, but Takashi was warm, Takashi was hot, Takashi’s skin burning against his touch when he slipped his hand under Takashi’s shirt, both hands spread over the broad back, feeling the muscles shift as they kissed again. Takashi’s smile was wild, and his hair ruffled by the wind.

He couldn’t pinpoint the time when Takashi’s smile started to wither. He should have noticed, but the first time he realised it was the first time he saw the photo he was now holding in his hand. He didn’t remember the day clearly, only impressions of it. Takashi’s laugh when he was trying to catch Keith, who kept dodging him because Takashi let it happen. Keith’s quiet laugh when he raised Takashi’s datapad and took a photo of Takashi chasing him. It was sunny and warm. Takashi and Keith were in a world of their own, he didn’t have a place in it. He didn’t try to have a place in it.

How could he have been so bitter over a boy.

That evening Takashi showed him the picture Keith had taken, of Takashi smiling like he used to smile to him. That was the moment he noticed how something had shifted but couldn’t tell what. He sent the picture to his own datapad and later had it printed.

He wanted it as a reminder. This was Takashi. This was, what he was supposed to make Takashi feel.

Then Takashi started talking about the Kerberos mission.

He closed his eyes. The hand holding Takashi’s picture was shaking, even resting over his lap. He had kept it with him from the moment he heard that Takashi had died.

Takashi had died, and he never had the chance to say goodbye.

He thought bitterly about the way he had walked out without a word and never returned, how he had left Takashi by himself, yet that wasn’t quite true. Takashi had Keith. He had left, but Takashi wasn’t alone.

And Keith had been a better support than he had been.

And Takashi was dead.

And a year later he wasn’t.

He closed his right eye, still unsure of the condition of his left eye. A year of numb grief had passed by when he heard about the crash, when he hacked into the system, when he saw Takashi. A tuft of white hair in place of black, a robotic arm, but it was Takashi.

And then Takashi was gone.

He opened his eye. It took more effort this time.

They had said that the missing cadets were returning. They had said that with them, Takashi was returning.

Maybe he was selfish, but he had hoped.

He had wanted to see Takashi once more, one last time.

Just to see him alive.

Hoping that Takashi would look at him and let him say he was wrong and Takashi was right. He had been wrong, but he had been so right. He didn’t want to be right, not about that.

With great effort he lifted his left hand. He stroked over the picture with a finger. One last touch. It smeared blood over Takashi’s face.

He groaned with pain. His vision was blurry. He hoped that death would come quickly.

His eye was closed again but something made him open it and look around. He couldn’t see properly anymore, every detail lost into their surroundings. But there, not far from his fallen aircraft, he saw a figure. White. Its hair was white, and it reached out to him.

“Takashi.”

His voice was gravelly, barely a whisper.

His breaths were wheezing, and he could no longer keep his eye open.

He had seen Takashi one last time.

**Author's Note:**

> Please be kind to me, it's my first fic in this fandom!
> 
> This was vaguely inspired by a piece of art but I'm too shy to link to it.
> 
> [mastodon](https://fandom.ink/@mean_whale) \- [writing list](https://mean-whale.dreamwidth.org/557.html)
> 
> [personal twitter](https://twitter.com/mean_whale) \- [linktree](https://linktr.ee/rtilhi)


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